


The Cinders of Element

by liggytheauthoress



Series: Melt the Elements 'Verse [8]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deleted Scenes, M/M, One Shot Collection, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liggytheauthoress/pseuds/liggytheauthoress
Summary: A place for one-shots, alternate/deleted scenes, and various other minutiae that don’t really have anywhere else to go in the series. These are going to be absolutely all over the place: some will be fluffy, others...not so much. Prompts welcome!
Relationships: Joshua Faraday/Vasquez
Series: Melt the Elements 'Verse [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/610600
Comments: 33
Kudos: 63





	The Cinders of Element

**Author's Note:**

> ...so I didn't intend to start off with something THIS dark, but I've been dying to write angry!bloodbender!Vasquez for like three years now. Basically a what if fic - what if McCann had actually killed Faraday during the final battle, and how would Vas react?
> 
> No canon Faradays were harmed in the making of this fic.

He sees Faraday stop and bring his arms up in a shoving motion, and the fireball goes hurtling back towards the Blackstone who created it.

Vasquez had already known he’d been wrong about Faraday, but until this moment he hadn’t realized _how_ wrong.

Before Vasquez can react, there’s the sound of a shot nearby...and Faraday’s head snaps to the side. He seems to hang there for a moment before collapsing to the ground, a pool of blood already starting to spread out in the dirt beneath his head.

Vasquez _screams_. Loudly enough to be heard over the ceaseless gunfire around them. He drops his guns - he won’t need them - and advances on McCann like a raging bull. McCann, who looks suddenly terrified by the pure, raw fury Vasquez knows is on his face right now, and who tries to spur his horse into a run before the waterbender can reach him.

Vasquez gets to him first.

He doesn’t go for the water in the rain barrels. Doesn’t need to. He brings his hands up, closes them into fists, and yanks...and McCann topples off his horse like a sack of flour as Vasquez starts to turn his own body against him.

Paying the battle around them no mind, Vasquez stalks towards McCann’s prone form like a cat, twisting his hand in a way that makes McCann gasp in pain. He looks from McCann to where Faraday - Faraday’s _body_ \- is slumped on the ground, and takes a perverse kind of pleasure in the way McCann follows his gaze, the moment he clearly realizes what a mistake he made in killing the first person Vasquez has allowed himself to truly care for in a long time.

Vasquez knows his mother would be horrified by what he’s doing. What he’s about to do.

He looks at Faraday again, remembers the last words he said to the firebender and the fact that Faraday died thinking Vasquez hated him, thinking most of them hated him - the fact that Faraday will _never know_ what Vasquez had begun to feel for him - and decides he doesn’t give a fuck.

McCann gives a strangled yelp as Vasquez moves his hands, as his insides start to contort. Vasquez makes a jerking motion with his fist and the yelp turns into a shriek as something, Vasquez isn’t exactly sure what and doesn’t care, inside of McCann ruptures.

Vasquez grins, wide and feral and _savage_. A sweeping motion with his arm sends McCann slamming into the nearest wall, but instead of letting him fall, Vasquez holds him there. McCann watches with wide, terrified eyes as the waterbender comes to a stop right in front of him. He opens his mouth, presumably to beg for his life, but Vasquez doesn’t let him, forcing his jaw open so McCann can’t speak.

“Know this before you die, _cabrón_ ,” Vasquez growls, giving little twitches of his fingers that have McCann sobbing in pain. “The man you just killed? His name was Joshua Faraday. He was one of the best man I have ever met. The best friend I have ever had. And you _took him from me_.”

McCann’s eyes are shining with silent, desperate apology, but it’s too late for that now. The time for apology passed the second his bullet went through Faraday’s skull and took every last one of Vasquez’s hopes for the future with it.

He could draw this out for a long, long time. Part of him wants to. Wants to make McCann suffer the way Vasquez is suffering. But there’s still a battle going on, and if they lose then Faraday will have died for nothing, and Vasquez _refuses_ to let that happen. So with a final jerk of his hand, he crushes McCann’s heart.

It seems the most fitting. After all, McCann just did the same to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise the next one will be less depressing. Probably. Again, prompts welcome! Drop them here or in my ask box on tumblr: https://liggytheauthoress.tumblr.com/ask


End file.
